The manipulation of climate for military use

This article first published in December 2009 raises the issue of climatic manipulation.

World leaders are now meeting in Warsaw to “lay the groundwork for a new pact to fight global warming”.

Once more, environmental modification techniques which can trigger tsunamis, typhoons and earthquakes are excluded from the Warsaw discussion on climate change.

Ironically, Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD) were acknowledged by the UN in 1977 upon the signing in Geneva of the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques. Since then climate manipulation has been amply documented by scientists. It is acknowledged by the mainstream media including CBS and CBC.

Despite a vast body of scientific knowledge, the issue of climatic manipulation has been excluded from the Warsaw agenda on climate change. In excluding it from the debate, the UN is in violation of its own mandate as defined by the 1977 Convention.

“Environmental warfare is defined as the intentional modification or manipulation of the natural ecology, such as climate and weather, earth systems such as the ionosphere, magnetosphere, tectonic plate system, and/or the triggering of seismic events (earthquakes) to cause intentional physical, economic, and psycho-social, and physical destruction to an intended target geophysical or population location, as part of strategic or tactical war.” (Eco News)

“[Weather modification] offers the war fighter a wide range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary… Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog and storms on earth or to modify space weather… and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of [military] technologies.” (US Air Force document AF 2025 Final Report)

World leaders are meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009 with a view to reaching an agreement on Global Warming. The debate on Climate Change focuses on the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions and measures to reduce manmade CO2 emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.

The underlying consensus is that greenhouse gas emissions constitute the sole cause of climate instability. Neither the governments nor the environmental action groups, have raised the issue of “weather warfare” or “environmental modification techniques (ENMOD).” for military use. Despite a vast body of scientific knowledge, the issue of climatic manipulations for military use has been excluded from the UN agenda on climate change.

John von Neumann noted at the height of the Cold War (1955), with tremendous foresight that:

”Intervention in atmospheric and climatic matters ….will unfold on a scale difficult to imagine at present… [T]his will merge each nation’s affairs with those of every other, more thoroughly than the threat of a nuclear or any other war would have done.” (Quoted in Spencer Weart, Environmental Warfare: Climate Modification Schemes, Global Research, December 5, 20090

In 1977, an international Convention was ratified by the UN General Assembly which banned “military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects.” (AP, 18 May 1977). Both the US and the Soviet Union were signatories to the Convention.

Guided by the interest of consolidating peace, … and of saving mankind from the danger of using new means of warfare, (…) Recognizing that military … use of such [environmental modification techniques] could have effects extremely harmful to human welfare, Desiring to prohibit effectively military … use of environmental modification techniques in order to eliminate the dangers to mankind. … and affirming their willingness to work towards the achievement of this objective, (…) Each State Party to this Convention undertakes not to engage in military … use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury to any other State Party. (Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, United Nations, Geneva, May 18, 1977. Entered into force: 5 October 1978, see full text of Convention in Annex)

The Convention defined “‘environmental modification techniques’ as referring to any technique for changing–through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes–the dynamics, composition or structure of the earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere or of outer space.” (Environmental Modification Ban Faithfully Observed, States Parties Declare, UN Chronicle, July, 1984, Vol. 21, p. 27)

The substance of the 1977 Convention was reasserted in very general terms in the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro:

“States have… in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, the (…) responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.” (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, New York, 1992)

Following the 1992 Earth Summit, the issue of Climate Change for military use was never raised in subsequent climate change summits and venues under the auspices of the UNFCCC. The issue was erased, forgotten. It is not part of the debate on climate change.

In February 1998, however, the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defense Policy held public hearings in Brussels on the U.S based weather warfare facility developed under the HAARP program.

The Committee’s “Motion for Resolution” submitted to the European Parliament:

“Considers HAARP.[The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program based in Alaska].. by virtue of its far-reaching impact on the environment to be a global concern and calls for its legal, ecological and ethical implications to be examined by an international independent body…; [the Committee] regrets the repeated refusal of the United States Administration… to give evidence to the public hearing …into the environmental and public risks [of] the HAARP program.” (European Parliament, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defense Policy, Brussels, doc. no. A4-0005/99, 14 January 1999).

The Committee’s request to draw up a “Green Paper” on “the environmental impacts of military activities”, however, was casually dismissed on the grounds that the European Commission lacked the required jurisdiction to delve into “the links between environment and defense”. Brussels was anxious to avoid a showdown with Washington. (see European Report, 3 February 1999).

In 2007, The Daily Express reported –following the release and declassification of British government papers from the National Archives– that:

“The [declassified] documents reveal that both the US, which led the field, and the Soviet Union had secret military programmes with the goal of controlling the world’s climate. “By the year 2025 the United States will own the weather, ” one scientist is said to have boasted.

…

These claims are dismissed by sceptics as wild conspiracy theories and the stuff of James Bond movies but there is growing evidence that the boundaries between science fiction and fact are becoming increasingly blurred. The Americans now admit that they invested L12million over five years during the Vietnam war on “cloud seeding” – deliberately creating heavy rainfall to wash away enemy crops and destroy supply routes on the Ho Chi Minh trail, in an operation codenamed Project Popeye.

It is claimed that rainfall was increased by a third in targeted areas, making the weather-manipulation weapon a success. At the time, government officials said the region was prone to heavy rain. (Weather War?, Daily Express, July 16, 2007)

The possibility of climatic or environmental manipulations as part of a military agenda, while formally acknowledged by official government documents and the US military, has never been considered relevant to the Climate debate. Military analysts are mute on the subject. Meteorologists are not investigating the matter, and environmentalists are strung on global warming and the Kyoto protocol.

The HAARP Program

The High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) based in Gokona, Alaska, has been in existence since 1992. It is part of a new generation of sophisticated weaponry under the US Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Operated by the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate, HAARP constitutes a system of powerful antennas capable of creating “controlled local modifications of the ionosphere” [upper layer of the atmosphere]:

Without explicitly referring to the HAARP program, a US Air Force study points to the use of “induced ionospheric modifications” as a means of altering weather patterns as well as disrupting enemy communications and radar. (Ibid)

HAARP also has the ability of triggering blackouts and disrupting the electricity power system of entire regions:

“Rosalie Bertell, president of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, says HAARP operates as ‘a gigantic heater that can cause major disruptions in the ionosphere, creating not just holes, but long incisions in the protective layer that keeps deadly radiation from bombarding the planet’.

Physicist Dr Bernard Eastlund called it ‘the largest ionospheric heater ever built’. HAARP is presented by the US Air Force as a research programme, but military documents confirm its main objective is to ‘induce ionospheric modifications’ with a view to altering weather patterns and disrupting communications and radar.

According to a report by the Russian State Duma: ‘The US plans to carry out large-scale experiments under the HAARP programme [and] create weapons capable of breaking radio communication lines and equipment installed on spaceships and rockets, provoke serious accidents in electricity networks and in oil and gas pipelines, and have a negative impact on the mental health of entire regions.’

Weather manipulation is the pre-emptive weapon par excellence. It can be directed against enemy countries or ‘friendly nations’ without their knowledge, used to destabilise economies, ecosystems and agriculture. It can also trigger havoc in financial and commodity markets. The disruption in agriculture creates a greater dependency on food aid and imported grain staples from the US and other Western countries.” (Michel Chossudovsky, Weather Warfare: Beware the US military’s experiments with climatic warfare, The Ecologist, December 2007)

An analysis of statements emanating from the US Air Force points to the unthinkable: the covert manipulation of weather patterns, communications systems and electric power as a weapon of global warfare, enabling the US to disrupt and dominate entire regions of the World. According to an official US Air force report

“Weather-modification offers the war fighter a wide-range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary… In the United States, weather-modification will likely become a part of national security policy with both domestic and international applications. Our government will pursue such a policy, depending on its interests, at various levels.” (US Air Force, emphasis added. Air University of the US Air Force, AF 2025 Final Report, http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/ emphasis added)

Copenhagen CO15

The manipulation of climate for military use is potentially a greater threat to humanity than CO2 emissions.

Adopted by Resolution 31/72 of the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1976. The Convention was opened for signature at Geneva on 18 May 1977.

Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques

The States Parties to this Convention, Guided by the interest of consolidating peace, and wishing to contribute to the cause of halting the arms race, and of bringing about general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control, and of saving mankind from the danger of using new means of warfare,

Determined to continue negotiations with a view to achieving effective progress towards further measures in the field of disarmament,

Recognizing that scientific and technical advances may open new possibilities with respect to modification of the environment,

Recalling the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, adopted at Stockholm on 16 June 1972,

Realizing that the use of environmental modification techniques for peaceful purposes could improve the interrelationship of man and nature and contribute to the preservation and improvement of the environment for the benefit of present and future generations,

Recognizing, however, that military or any other hostile use of such techniques could have effects extremely harmful to human welfare,

Desiring to prohibit effectively military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques in order to eliminate the dangers to mankind from such use, and affirming their willingness to work towards the achievement of this objective,

Desiring also to contribute to the strengthening of trust among nations and to the further improvement of the international situation in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,

Have agreed as follows:

Article I 1. Each State Party to this Convention undertakes not to engage in military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury to any other State Party.

2. Each State Party to this Convention undertakes not to assist, encourage or induce any State, group of States or international organization to engage in activities contrary to the provisions of paragraph 1 of this article.

Article II As used in article 1, the term “environmental modification techniques” refers to any technique for changing – through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes – the dynamics, composition or structure of the Earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space.

Article III 1. The provisions of this Convention shall not hinder the use of environmental modification techniques for peaceful purposes and shall be without prejudice to the generally recognized principles and applicable rules of international law concerning such use.

2. The States Parties to this Convention undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of scientific and technological information on the use of environmental modification techniques for peaceful purposes. States Parties in a position to do so shall contribute, alone or together with other States or international organizations, to international economic and scientific co-operation in the preservation, improvement and peaceful utilization of the environment, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.

Article IV Each State Party to this Convention undertakes to take any measures it considers necessary in accordance with its constitutional processes to prohibit and prevent any activity in violation of the provisions of the Convention anywhere under its jurisdiction or control.

Article V 1. The States Parties to this Convention undertake to consult one another and to co-operate in solving any problems which may arise in relation to the objectives of, or in the application of the provisions of, the Convention. Consultation and co-operation pursuant to this article may also be undertaken through appropriate international procedures within the framework of the United Nations and in accordance with its Charter. These international procedures may include the services of appropriate international organizations, as well as of a Consultative Committee of Experts as provided for in paragraph 2 of this article.

2. For the purposes set forth in paragraph 1 of this article, the Depositary shall within one month of the receipt of a request from any State Party to this Convention, convene a Consultative Committee of Experts. Any State Party may appoint an expert to the Committee whose functions and rules of procedure are set out in the annex which constitutes an integral part of this Convention. The Committee shall transmit to the Depositary a summary of its findings of fact, incorporating all views and information presented to the Committee during its proceedings. The Depositary shall distribute the summary to all States Parties.

3. Any State Party to this Convention which has reason to believe that any other State Party is acting in breach of obligations deriving from the provisions of the Convention may lodge a complaint with the Security Council of the United Nations. Such a complaint should include all relevant information as well as all possible evidence supporting ItS validity.

4. Each State Party to this Convention undertakes to cooperate in carrying out any investigation which the Security Council may initiate, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, on the basis of the complaint received by the Council. The Security Council shall inform the States Parties of the results of the investigation.

5. Each State Party to this Convention undertakes to provide or support assistance, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, to any State Party which so requests, if the Security Council decides that such Party has been harmed or is likely to be harmed as a result of violation of the Convention.

Article VI 1. Any State Party to this Convention may propose amendments to the Convention. The text of any proposed amendment shall be submitted to the Depositary, who shall promptly circulate it to all States Parties.

2. An amendment shall enter into force for all States Parties to this Convention which have accepted it, upon the deposit with the Depositary of instruments of acceptance by a majority of States Parties. Thereafter it shall enter into force for any remaining State Party on the date of deposit of its instrument of acceptance.

Article VII This Convention shall be of unlimited duration.

Article VIII 1. Five years after the entry into force of this Convention, a conference of the States Parties to the Convention shall be convened by the Depositary at Geneva, Switzerland. The conference shall review the operation of the Convention with a view to ensuring that its purposes and provisions are being realized, and shall in particular examine the effectiveness of the provisions of paragraph 1 of article I in eliminating the dangers of military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques.

2. At intervals of not less than five years thereafter, a majority of the States Parties to this Convention may obtain, by submitting a proposal to this effect to the Depositary, the convening of a conference with the same objectives.

3. If no conference has been convened pursuant to paragraph 2 of this article within ten years following the conclusion of a previous conference, the Depositary shall solicit the views of all States Parties to this Convention concerning the convening of such a conference. If one third or ten of the States Parties, whichever number is less, respond affirmatively, the Depositary shall take immediate steps to convene the conference.

Article IX 1. This Convention shall be open to all States for signature. Any State which does not sign the Convention before its entry into force in accordance with paragraph 3 of this article may accede to it at any time.

2. This Convention shall be subject to ratification by signatory States. Instruments of ratification or accession shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

3. This Convention shall enter into force upon the deposit of instruments of ratification by twenty Governments in accordance with paragraph 2 of this article.

4. For those States whose instruments of ratification or accession are deposited after the entry into force of this Convention, it shall enter into force on the date of the deposit of their instruments of ratification or accession.

5. The Depositary shall promptly inform all signatory and acceding States of the date of each signature, the date of deposit of each instrument of ratification or accession and the date of the entry into force of this Convention and of any amendments thereto, as well as of the receipt of other notices.

6. This Convention shall be registered by the Depositary in accordance with Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations.

Article X This Convention, of which the Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who shall send duly certified copies thereof to the Governments of the signatory and acceding States.

In witness whereof, the undersigned, being duly authorized thereto, have signed this Convention

Done at Geneva, on the 18 day of May 1977.

Annex to the Convention

Consultative Committee of Experts 1. The Consultative Committee of Experts shall undertake to make appropriate findings of fact and provide expert views relevant to any problem raised pursuant to paragraph 1 of article V of this Convention by the State Party requesting the convening of the Committee.

2. The work of the Consultative Committee of Experts shall be organized in such a way as to permit it to perform the functions set forth in paragraph 1 of this annex. The Committee shall decide procedural questions relative to the organization of its work, where possible by consensus, but otherwise by a majority of those present and voting. There shall be no voting on matters of substance.

3. The Depositary or his representative shall serve as the Chairman of the Committee.

4. Each expert may be assisted at meetings by one or more advisers.

5. Each expert shall have the right, through the Chairman, to request from States, and from international organizations, such information and assistance as the expert considers desirable for the accomplishment of the Committee’s work.

About the author:

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research. He has taught as visiting professor in Western Europe, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Latin America. He has served as economic adviser to governments of developing countries and has acted as a consultant for several international organizations. He is the author of eleven books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003), America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005), The Global Economic Crisis, The Great Depression of the Twenty-first Century (2009) (Editor), Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War (2011), The Globalization of War, America's Long War against Humanity (2015). He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. In 2014, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia for his writings on NATO's war of aggression against Yugoslavia. He can be reached at [email protected]

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